Candle in the Window, Kiss Upon His Lips
by irisbleufic
Summary: Although things have been set to rights, Underland still has its ghosts and ruins.


Alice's earliest memory of the broken-down windmill is hazy, filtered through years spent believing the disconnected image part of a much larger sequence of dreams. She'd taken very little heed of the structure as a girl, preferring the hustle and bustle of the gaily set tea-table before her, although she'd been dimly aware of its window-lights gleaming eerie counterpoint to the gramophone in the background.

Upon her return to the scene—late, as ever, when she'd still half believed she was dreaming—the windmill had filled her vision, loomed larger than life. It might have had something to do with the fact that she'd been only two feet tall, and then two _inches_ if she'd been lucky, but it might also have had something to do with the precise state of disrepair. Surely it hadn't been _quite_ so ragged the first time around, so full of seething despair. Like all of Underland, it breathed. And wept, too, with doleful, flickering eyes. But Tarrant had risen then, and she'd looked at nothing else.

The windmill is dark now as they approach it in the gathering dusk.

"Did you bring a key?" asks Alice, glancing up the towering façade. She feels as if they're being watched, weighed and judged by some pensive, heavy spirit within.

"Gracious, no," Tarrant replies with a laugh, turning the badly rusted doorknob. "We saw no reason in bothering with locks, Thackery and Mally and myself. _Clocks_, however, are another matter. Deceitful things! Alice, _do_ come inside. It's raining."

"Hardly," she murmurs, brushing pin-pricks of water from her bare arms, and follows him into the thick darkness. The scorched wooden door closes behind them with a dull, wary _thud_. For interminable seconds, there's nothing but the sound of Tarrant's breath and the hammering of her heart. The space smells damp with disuse.

"We've been gone too long," sighs Tarrant, mournfully, and strikes a match.

Where he's gotten the candle, she can't guess. From one of his myriad overladen pockets, no doubt, fished from a jumble of ribbons by fingers that have no need of light. In the flame's dim glow, she can see that they're standing in a drawing-room of sorts. A writing-desk stands against the far window, backed by wraithlike curtains. In another corner, there's a charred grandfather clock with a smashed-in face. She approaches it, unable to tear her eyes from the jagged glass, the too-still hands.

"Did she burn everything?" Alice whispers, reaching out to touch the few remaining gold-inlaid numbers. Beneath her fingertips, the clock seems to tremble: a misused, mistrustful soul. Tarrant's hand falls on her shoulder, as if to steer her away.

"Not _everything_," he says, his voice thick. "But a good _many_ things, yes. You'll find that the upper floors fared better. We threw all the teapots and put the fire out."

"I see," says Alice, quietly, and lets herself be led into the adjoining room.

"Kitchen," Tarrant says, proudly, as if giving a grand tour to royalty. The candle is burning stronger now, and Alice can make out shapes more clearly. Pot-bellied stove. Ornately tiled hearth, complete with roasting spit. Cast-iron kettle. Cauldron. Something that feels like eggshell crackles underfoot. Quizzical, she scuffs at it.

"This is where Thackery made our sweets," Tarrant explains, his tone soft and distant. "He doesn't always make a mess of it, you know. Left to himself, he's got nobody to throw things _at_, and his love-affair with cookery is much more fruitful _indeed_. He once turned out four dozen scones in an hour, along with a baker's dozen in tea-cakes."

"They were awfully good tea-cakes," Alice says, brushing a droplet of wax from Tarrant's hand. Suddenly, his tiny, round burn scars aren't such a mystery.

"Yes," he sighs, coming back to himself. "_Well_. Let's go upstairs, shall we?"

The stairs creak and wince with each step, as if they, too, have grievances to air. Tarrant leads the way with near-silent footfalls, his cold hand motionless in Alice's own. They come to a square landing, where two more sets of stairs branch off on either side of a large bay window. They're at the back of the building now, Alice guesses; she's never seen this particular tableau from the outside. Tarrant stands frozen, his eyes drifting nervously from one set of stairs to the other, and then back again. They flicker doubtful salmon pink in the candlelight, crossed by shadows.

"Tarrant," Alice murmurs, gently taking the candle from him. "Which way?"

"Queast leads to Thackery's room, and then Mally's," Tarrant says hesitantly, as if struggling to remember. "For all my sins, Snud leads to mine."

"I should very much like to see your sins," Alice says, taking him by the arm.

She crosses the threshold alone, carrying the candle to the nearest window. She casts about for something, _anything_ to hold it up, finally settling on two heavy glass objects from the bedside table. What are they, she wonders, as she wedges them on either side of the guttering candle. Paperweights? Fabric-weights is more like it, she thinks, tracing the delicate spiral galaxy in the middle of one before moving to the starburst emblazoning the other. Where are Underland's glass-blowers? Did they survive?

"They were a gift," Tarrant says at her shoulder. "From Absolem's kin. All gone."

Alice turns to face him, too full of the house's pain—and _his_—to bear it.

"We'll stay tonight," she says decisively, reaching to throw down the moth-eaten coverlet. Tarrant stares at her, his eyes luminous, a sad smile lingering at his lips.

"To what end," he asks, the words pitched low, "my Alice, my love? We've stayed away for good reason. There's naught to be had here but ghosts."

"Thackery lived," Alice points out, leading him to the bed. "Mally lived, too."

"I hadn't expected it would seem so little," he whispers, following. "Once we'd won."

"_You_ lived," Alice reminds him, crawling backwards onto the mattress. "I lived, too."

"True," Tarrant murmurs, looming above her. "We must be glad of small mercies."

"Don't dwell on it so," whispers Alice, reaching up to frame his face. "We're _here_."

The kiss is rough in spite of its tenderness, as if they've simultaneously decided upon the uselessness of talking. Alice takes Tarrant's full weight with an excited shiver, the cool air of his old room tickling her legs, now bare to the thigh, like a familiar caress. It's as if she's always been here, somewhere, waiting to emerge full-grown from the scarred woodwork, to fall gladly and be consumed, gasping, by candlelight. They don't even bother to undress. A few fumbled buttons, her knees drawn up by careworn hands, and he's _in_. Tarrant's bed-frame groans beneath the weight of it, as if their pleasure is an unaccustomed intrusion, at once too foreign and joyous to bear.

In the stillness afterward, Tarrant leaves her with a kiss on the forehead and returns bearing an armful of colorful scrap-blankets (like quilts, Alice marvels, only brighter, infinitely more whimsical) and several fresh candles. They strip down in silence, folding themselves together under the pile of dusty linens. Tarrant sings her to sleep, ancient ballads in a language she's struggling to learn. But learn it, she _will_.

Alice wakes, warm and alone, to the smell of fresh baked goods and the shattering of china. Below her, in the kitchen, an argument breaks out in vibrant Outlandish.

"We're home," she tells the house, willing her words to reach the sails far overhead.

And although she's not sure why, she believes that the windmill just might agree.


End file.
